r is done is done
harmoniously, and in no case is decoration the result of accident. The
sum of it all is that every shop in an ordinary street is a perfect
picture. At first you are amazed at the beauty of everything. "How in
the world is it," you ask yourself, "that by a series of apparent
accidents everything appears beautiful?" You cannot imagine until you
know that even the "common man" has acquired the scientific placing of
his things, and that the feeling permeates all classes. Perhaps,
however, one of the most curious experiences I had of the native
artistic instinct of Japan occurred in this way I had got a number of
fanholders and was busying myself one afternoon in arranging them upon
the walls. My little Japanese servant boy was in the room, and as I went
on with my work I caught an expression on his face from time to time
which showed that he was not over-pleased with my performance. After a
while, as this dissatisfied expression seemed to deepen, I asked him
what the matter was. Then he frankly confessed that he did not like the
way in which I was arranging my fanholders. "Why did you not tell me so
at once?" I asked. "You are an artist from England," he replied, "and it
was not for me to speak." However, I persuaded him to arrange the
fanholders himself after his own taste, and I must say that I received a
remarkable lesson. The task took him about two hours, placing,
arranging, adjusting; and when he had finished the result was simply
beautiful. That wall was a perfect picture; every fanholder seemed to be
exactly in its right place, and it looked as if the alteration of a
single one would affect and disintegrate the whole scheme. I accepted
the lesson with due humility, and remained more than ever convinced that
the Japanese are what they have justly claimed to be, an essentially
artistic people instinct with living art.

It is, in point of fact, almost impossible to exaggerate the importance
attached to the placing of an object by every Japanese, and it would be
no exaggeration to say that if a common coolie were given an addressed
envelope to stamp he would take great pains to place that little
coloured patch in relation to the name and address in order to form a
decorative pattern. Can you imagine a tradesman and his family, wife and
children, running across the Strand to watch the placing of a saucepan
in their window? Yet this is no unusual occurrence in Japan. You will
often see a family collected